Aizawa homers in ninth as Carp storm past BayStars

YOKOHAMA – Tsubasa Aizawa hit a tiebreaking home run with one out in the ninth inning, Brad Eldred went deep twice, and the second-place Hiroshima Carp rallied once to beat the Yokohama BayStars 7-5 on Sunday afternoon.

Yoshihiro Maru opened the scoring in the first with an RBI single up the middle, and Eldred added a two-run drive over the center-field wall before making an encore with a solo shot — his 25th home run — in his next at-bat in the third at Yokohama Stadium.

Yulieski Gurriel drove in three runs on 2-for-2 hitting, featuring a go-ahead two-run homer in the fifth, which put the BayStars ahead 5-4 before Maru tied it with a homer leading off the eighth.

Aizawa belted a drive off Yokohama closer Tomoya Mikami (0-1) for the lead and Ryosuke Kikuchi’s RBI single capped the scoring.

“Home runs are pretty easy to come by in this stadium, Aizawa said. “I knew that it was out of here when I connected.”

Dragons 10, Tigers 2

At Koshien Stadium, Anderson Hernandez went 4-for-6 with three RBIs in support of rookie Tatsuro Hamada (4-0), who limited the damage to two runs in five-plus innings as Chunichi moved into third with a win over Hanshin.